Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW
Freilager-Platz 1
4002 Basel
Switzerland
Studying is an expression of the need to understand. It reveals the desire for self-knowledge of one’s own desires: of how to grow as an artist and as a person, and how best to contribute to the social world in which one lives. Yet there is a growing wave moving toward the total disregard for such socially oriented understanding. The blind impulse, the denial, the cry of personal ambitions, all taken without considering the collective creation of values, appear to have taken over—together with capital—the public space. The democratic legislation in force that supports a peaceful and egalitarian coexistence between individuals and collectives is constantly ridiculed or ignored—simply—by the political powers and media that reproduce this ungenerous energy.
In this context, the value of education—and especially public education—seems to be a duty rather than an option. An education provides the time to develop the values that might help create a meaningful and dignified life, an artistic practice worthy of being part of an egalitarian society and sensitive to the problems of the most marginalized. Being an artist today is a very big project. It means affirming the complexity of perception against those impulses that want to colonize intelligence, to instrumentalize every human capacity toward profit for the few.
The Institute Art Gender Nature at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW is an organism. It is a life form constituted by multiple independent parts—teachers, students—functioning together as a whole. The seminars, carefully proposed by each faculty member—Phoenix Atala, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Onome Ekeh, Astrit Ismaili, Roman Kurzmeyer, Quinn Latimer, Chus Martínez, Filipa Ramos, Mathilde Rosier, and Yvonne Volkart—emerge from each teacher’s practices and passions. They, our technical experts, and guests from various fields, are all there to help our students gain a comprehension of their works’ possibilities, but also of its social and political contexts. Supplementing our seminars are numerous activities, including our biannual symposia series, which emerges from imagining future collective scenarios for art and culture, poetics and politics. We also produce a podcast series and the online publication series Wild Papers… each of these are integral features of the larger atmosphere our MA generates. Our technical workshops, too, are an important asset of our study program, offering digital tools to wood, metal, and sculpture workshops. Addressing our relationship with nature and our responsibility to the planet also implies understanding how art and artists might work in ways less damaging to life.
What defines, then, our master’s program? Imagine for a second a dandelion flower. Multiple fluffy white delicate parts called pappus are attached to a small base. Consider the delicacy and the effort of keeping these parts together, a sphere in which every part is interdependent. Likewise, in our program, everyone is attentive to the ideas of the larger project, and also to the possibilities of inventing new ways of breaking through, of creating languages capable of stabilizing a democratic space free of violence by fostering a way of mutuality and living with the arts. Together we explore possibilities, while also creating restorative forces capable of facing the many problems we have as communities within a social fabric. Today we need to become more generous than ever to be able to act without hate, without fear, and without the impulse to censor others. This is a very difficult task that no one can accomplish alone. The study of art is a chance to exercise peace, and to advocate for more equitable futures.
The application deadline is March 15, 2025, with the MA program beginning in September 2025. More information about the program and the admission process can be found online.
Chus Martínez
Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW
About studying at Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW
We aspire to be an inspiring and ambitious academy while being welcoming, joyful and transformative. We value the diversity of our student body, encourage collaboration and love surprises. On our campus, we offer studio spaces 24/7, excellently equipped workshops and labs, individual mentoring and counselling, international exchange programmes, open discourse spaces and social infrastructures. Our creative neighbourhood on the Dreispitz, the cultural city of Basel and our geographical location in the three-country triangle make the HGK Basel a unique place to study.
